Robin, Xavier and Hugo crabbing at Southwold

I’d never come across this phenomenon until a Devon holiday a few years ago. Is it peculiarly British to want to spend time catching tiny crabs and then letting them go? Or do kids do this in other parts of the world? My childhood memory of having fun with crabs was having hermit crab races – where the first one whose crab moved out of a chalked circle was the winner, and where you stopped your opponents’ crabs by shouting if they came close to the circle.
Brushpen and watercolour